"X-bar" meaning in English

See X-bar in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Etymology: Pronunciation of its text representation: a letter X with overbar. Head templates: {{head|en|noun}} X-bar
  1. (grammar, X-bar theory) A phrase, or, equivalently, a node in a syntax tree, which consists either of: (1) an adjunct and another X-bar phrase, (2) a head, X, and an optional complement, or (3) a conjunction sandwiched between two other X-bars. The X is a "pro-letter" which can be substituted by letters such as N for noun, V for verb, P for preposition, I for inflectional, etc. Categories (topical): Grammar Hyponyms: I-bar, N-bar, P-bar, V-bar Holonyms: XP Meronyms: adjunct, head, complement Derived forms: X-bar theory
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  "etymology_text": "Pronunciation of its text representation: a letter X with overbar.",
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      "derived": [
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          "word": "X-bar theory"
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1988, Andrew Radford, chapter 7, in Transformational grammar: a first course, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, page 350:",
          "text": "For example, the fact that give must occur as the leftmost constituent of the V-bar containing it follows from two conditions. The first is a putatively universal linearisation (i.e. word-order) principle proposed by Stowell (1981, p. 68) which we might call the PERIPHERY PRINCIPLE: this can be outlined informally as in (33) below:\n (33) PERIPHERY PRINCIPLE\n (33) The head term of a Phrase appears at the periphery of X-bar\n What (33) says is that the Head must be the leftmost or rightmost immediate constituent of X-bar.",
          "type": "quote"
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      "glosses": [
        "A phrase, or, equivalently, a node in a syntax tree, which consists either of: (1) an adjunct and another X-bar phrase, (2) a head, X, and an optional complement, or (3) a conjunction sandwiched between two other X-bars. The X is a \"pro-letter\" which can be substituted by letters such as N for noun, V for verb, P for preposition, I for inflectional, etc."
      ],
      "holonyms": [
        {
          "word": "XP"
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      "hyponyms": [
        {
          "word": "I-bar"
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        {
          "word": "N-bar"
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          "word": "P-bar"
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          "complement",
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          "conjunction",
          "conjunction"
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          "sandwiched"
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          "word": "adjunct"
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          "word": "head"
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      "qualifier": "X-bar theory",
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        "(grammar, X-bar theory) A phrase, or, equivalently, a node in a syntax tree, which consists either of: (1) an adjunct and another X-bar phrase, (2) a head, X, and an optional complement, or (3) a conjunction sandwiched between two other X-bars. The X is a \"pro-letter\" which can be substituted by letters such as N for noun, V for verb, P for preposition, I for inflectional, etc."
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{
  "derived": [
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      "word": "X-bar theory"
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  ],
  "etymology_text": "Pronunciation of its text representation: a letter X with overbar.",
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  "holonyms": [
    {
      "word": "XP"
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  ],
  "hyponyms": [
    {
      "word": "I-bar"
    },
    {
      "word": "N-bar"
    },
    {
      "word": "P-bar"
    },
    {
      "word": "V-bar"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
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    {
      "word": "adjunct"
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    {
      "word": "head"
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    {
      "word": "complement"
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          "ref": "1988, Andrew Radford, chapter 7, in Transformational grammar: a first course, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, page 350:",
          "text": "For example, the fact that give must occur as the leftmost constituent of the V-bar containing it follows from two conditions. The first is a putatively universal linearisation (i.e. word-order) principle proposed by Stowell (1981, p. 68) which we might call the PERIPHERY PRINCIPLE: this can be outlined informally as in (33) below:\n (33) PERIPHERY PRINCIPLE\n (33) The head term of a Phrase appears at the periphery of X-bar\n What (33) says is that the Head must be the leftmost or rightmost immediate constituent of X-bar.",
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      ],
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        "A phrase, or, equivalently, a node in a syntax tree, which consists either of: (1) an adjunct and another X-bar phrase, (2) a head, X, and an optional complement, or (3) a conjunction sandwiched between two other X-bars. The X is a \"pro-letter\" which can be substituted by letters such as N for noun, V for verb, P for preposition, I for inflectional, etc."
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        "(grammar, X-bar theory) A phrase, or, equivalently, a node in a syntax tree, which consists either of: (1) an adjunct and another X-bar phrase, (2) a head, X, and an optional complement, or (3) a conjunction sandwiched between two other X-bars. The X is a \"pro-letter\" which can be substituted by letters such as N for noun, V for verb, P for preposition, I for inflectional, etc."
      ],
      "topics": [
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        "human-sciences",
        "linguistics",
        "sciences"
      ]
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  ],
  "word": "X-bar"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-03-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-02-21 using wiktextract (7c21d10 and f2e72e5). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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